Change Your Image
ErasmusSpikher
Reviews
Bathory (2008)
Chess game with an open end
A viewer familiar with the name in the title of the movie will come into the theater expecting to look at -- and be horrified by -- the ugliest female murderer in history. During the first two thirds of the movie he or she will witness enough suspicious events to believe that their worst fears will eventually come true. The suspense is mounting and murders of innocent maids, baths in blood and occasional turning of the vile noblewoman into a black cat are just around the corner. At first glance, all we see is beautiful lady with an enormous hairdo (Anna Friel -- a truly nice performance!), who is wildly rich but unhappy in an arranged marriage. No wonder that when the unloved husband sends her a young painter (Hans Matheson) with an order to paint a portrait of her, faster than you pronounce "in the clothes I cannot distinguish the curves of your body'' she finds herself engaged into an emotional relationship with him. Short takes shot with artistic craftsmanship introduce us to permanently new situations that wear out at the moment the take is over, building up atmosphere rather than summing up into a coherent story. At a quick pace, we recognize that the lady likes to ride her husband shouting ''hajra'', meaning ''let's go'' in Hungarian; that she lost her baby after being raped by the husband when he appeared at home from the war against Turks; that he regrets what he has done, understanding that the war has made a beast from him; that her hairdo is fake; that the painter is Caravaggio; that the greedy neighbor who wishes to steal three lakes from her (Karel Roden) likes to play chess; that Caravaggio would wear a hat with burning candles when painting at night (yes, just like Forman's Goya), and so forth. While this is going on, every now and then there appears a remark or a situation that reminds us that the main character is THE Elizabeth Bathory. Finally we see her doing something which seems to confirm beyond all doubt her reputation -- only to find during the next take that she was under the influence of some hallucinogenic mushroom and did not know about herself. It is like chess game with an opponent having all forces ready for attack, but keeping to maneuver as if he was following some secret plan. *** SPOILER *** For me, the decisive evidence that I got the heroine wrong came shortly after the mushroom incident, with a certain finding -- let me put it in this way in order to soften the spoiler -- of two monks, a sophisticated old man and a boy, who were investigating the proceedings in the castle of Cachtice (just like the couple in The Name of the Rose was investigating the proceedings in the abbey -- but hey, how much of the Shakespeare's stuff was really original?). It was as late as that when I finally realized what the director, who is also the principal author of the script, has been telling us from the beginning: that countess Dracula was not Dracula at all. Many will charge the movie with a deliberate distortion of history, but its creator does not take notice of the battle cry of enemy combat orders and, like a knight of an old romance, carries on with his brave campaign to clean up the name of a noble lady. So far so good. But then again, why he confuses us for a better part of the movie making us think that the heroine is just as spoiled as the Guinness Book of World Records claims? When he postpones the revelation of the premise of the movie, he is putting himself at risk that the movie will produce massive disappointment in the audiences and attacks on the box office to get back the entrance fee. The more knightly is his deed, but anyway, what is the possible purpose to play with the viewer like that? Because he plays chess with US, not with the countess; and what appeared to be mysterious maneuvers on his part was in fact a row of subsequent sacrifices before the surprising final combination. However, the chess player who has lost the game can still enjoy the shear aesthetics of his defeat. The artist arranged the scene in such a realistic manner that the viewer is convinced it is meant to represent reality; and after the mistake becomes clear, an expiration of enchantment ensues. Like when Judith is just about to behead Holofernes, but after Caravaggio waves his hand, she puts down the knife and Holofernes stands up from the couch with a smile.
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Little mystery in this mystery - what a relief
Is it sensible to make mystery (sacrament) into a theme of a mystery (detective story)? I doubt. The genres are too different. Take this fragment from the introductory chapter of the book: "The click of an empty chamber echoed through the corridor. The curator's eyes flew open. The man glanced down at his weapon, looking almost amused. He reached for a second clip, but then seemed to reconsider, smirking calmly at Sauniere's gut. 'My work here is done.'" This is how these nasty guys always act - the more so if they are albinos. They just cannot help it. In the next few pages you get a tall blue-eyed hero and a charming heroine, and there you go. But at a certain moment a character starts to lecture on some funny, pop-art sort of religion theory; and the more he dwells on it, the more suspicious you are that the author, unbelievable as it is, believes every word of it. You need not to know about what is said of Jesus in the Dead Sea Scrolls (nothing), about the "marginal" vote of 2 to 300 something at the Council of Nicaea, or about the Priory of Sion hoax. From the very wording of Teabing's exposition it is clear that nothing of substance is revealed to his eager listeners. Right, it is just a fiction. But the driving impression that the author is dead serious about it is, uh, painful. Perhaps one should take comfort in the line by D. B. himself: "'Pain is good, monsieur,' the man said." In the movie, the SF (Sacred Feminine) promotional sequence feels much less annoying. Who cares about a slide show when there is a fine car race before it and a villain jumping from behind the door after it? The action is perpetual, although it proceeds at a rather mild pace. This is understandable. It is not appropriate for a man of letters, like the main character, to jump from one sky-draper to another attached to a rope like Tom Cruise in MI3; neither one would show good manners if setting off a couple of rockets at a nice old château near Paris. The meek behavior of the characters during the action takes, however, does not imply that one can truly sympathize with them. They are, after all, but comic book characters. All in all, when factorizing out the pretentious "revelation" scenes, the movie is not that bad. A piece of respectable craftsmanship, I would say. The mechanical development of the plot may seem a bit awkward, but the emperor of the Andersen fairy tale, too, preferred the artificial nightingale to the real one. Perhaps a distant echo of beauty can be heard even in the sounds produced by a mechanical gadget. Producing Fibonacci numbers is mechanical as well but, as Robert Langdon himself mentions in the book, if you wait long enough (in actual fact, infinitely long) you will end up with the Golden Section.
Hostel (2005)
Not a big deal (the first part, at least)
The film splits into two parts, the teenage sex comedy part and the horror part, which is not necessarily a fault. Horror is most effective if it starts in commonplace circumstances, and smoking pot and hunting madly for sex, no matter whether at the native college or with backpack overseas, seems to be commonplace for kids of the age group that was portrayed in the film. (And that is dominating the audience.) I do not admire such behavior but I do not think that because of how the poor kids behave one cannot sympathize with them when they get tortured later. Surely he who confronts his companions with his naked bottom repeatedly for no apparent reason, and calls himself "the king of the swing", should be punished, but chopping off his head is a bit too much. Perhaps it would suffice if his friend, an admirer of Kafka, would read him loudly the first chapter of the novel Amerika. Anyway, maybe a teenage sex comedy really has some potential to serve as a preamble to a horror, as the makers of the film believe. I went to the theater just to see whether this is the case. (In fact, I walked out after the first torture scene and I knew in advance that I will walk out. I do not have stomach for this kind of horror. I like Vertigo but not The Silence of the Lambs.) My general feeling is that the first part of the film is shot loosely, without focus and verve. As if the director thought "I am shooting an indie film, a film for fans (of whom there will be plenty), so why care?". When some suspense appears after all, it seems like it was smuggled into the film by the actors behind the director's back. I am talking about the creepy salad-eater in the train, and the girl with an eloquent smile at the reception desk of the hostel. But not the children gang, please! These well-fed Czech kids, thinking that they will look frightening if they will frown into the camera, were laughable. Perhaps if the film was shot in Slovakia, as the script suggests, and not in Czech republic, it would work better. After all, the opening takes of the horror classic Nosferatu were shot in Orava, a rough but beautiful region of Slovakia near the Slovak-Polish border.